(L-R): Ashton Hubbs, Addison Middleton, Dayna Valdez, and Anthony Spinato, CEO of Spinato’s Pizzeria & Family Kitchen at Spinato’s Tempe restaurant celebrating the new Employee Stock Ownership Plan announcement in October 2025; photo credit Morgan Bradley; courtesy of Spinato’s
In October 2025, our family-owned restaurant announced we were doing something unique: After more than five decades, Spinato’s Pizzeria & Family Kitchen transitioned 49% of company ownership to eligible employees in an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. Now as an ESOP, one out of three Spinato’s employees is an owner.
An ESOP is an employee benefit plan that provides substantial benefits to the company, its current owners and its employees. Currently, there are only about 7,000 companies in the United States that are ESOPs. In Arizona, ESOPs are also rare — fewer than 1% of companies statewide offer an Employee Stock Ownership Plan. And it’s even more unusual in the hospitality industry.
This was a heartfelt decision that my family made after more than two years reviewing succession and legacy options. Our Spinato family continues to be majority owners, and the new ESOP provides team members with a chance to share in profits while taking pride in contributing to Spinato’s continued growth.
Our family began to discuss the restaurant’s legacy and succession planning during a family retreat in 2022. My father, Ken Spinato, opened Spinato’s first restaurant in 1974 in Scottsdale with my mother, Elaine. Now in his 80s, Dad continues to greet guests at restaurants, but we knew we were approaching a pivotal time in the family business.
We talked about how COVID changed everything, and how the dream of retirement became more elusive for our friends, family and even our own employees. Dad shared that he really believed our restaurants are good for our communities and neighbors. Pizza brings people together — families, friends and neighbors connect with each other when they dine at our restaurants. We wanted to make sure we did everything we could to preserve and protect those connections happening in our restaurants for many decades in the future. Labor challenges, inflationary pressures and the wage gap also influenced our family’s decision.
We did consider other succession options, but we knew that if we were going to protect Spinato’s legacy, we needed to make sure the tenure of our people could grow. We want to find ways to retain our top talent, attract new talent and then reward their hard work and outcomes. We liked that an ESOP is true ownership.
ESOPs are governed by overarching federal laws, and every ESOP is different. It’s like building a custom house. Every business has its own inner workings, and we knew that we needed to work with a group that has a deep bench and a lot of experience. I interviewed several firms and decided to partner with WealthPoint because they were all former owners of small businesses.
Once we made the decision, we had to prepare, both financially and from a board structure and governance standpoint. Our chief financial officer, Rich Thompson, did a great job getting our financials and documents in place. It was a heavy lift, and we asked our accounting firm, Baker Tilly, to review and validate the work. We also had to adjust for the work that continues after the transition. Now we have annual ESOP reporting requirements that are similar to 401(k) plan reporting, and our company will undergo an independent annual valuation review. We partner with a third-party administrator and a valuation firm to support those processes, and that approach has worked well for us.
It was an exciting day when we alerted 150 employees that they already had a “slice of the pie” in ownership. But we had more work to do, especially when it came to educating our entire team of 420 employees. In retrospect, we wish we had started the education process sooner. We made the transition to an ESOP three and a half months prior to announcing it to our team. Part of the reason we held back was we were changing our Point-of-Sale (POS) system.
An ESOP is a big investment up front and we know we won’t get the return we are hoping for if we don’t continually educate and engage our team members. We’ve had to make time to have more transparent conversations with our employees about the business and show them how each position can make an impact in their everyday choices.
An ESOP provides ownership but, more importantly, it’s about entrusting that team members will care for the company. We believe in this business model and encourage other business owners to consider the benefits of an ESOP as they consider their growth, succession and legacy options.
Anthony Spinato, CEO of Spinato’s Pizzeria & Family Kitchen; photo credit Matt Young; courtesy of Spinato’s
Anthony Spinato is the CEO of Spinato’s Pizzeria & Family Kitchen, which transitioned to an Employee Stock Ownership Plan (ESOP) in October 2025. The now family- and employee-owned company has six locations in the East Valley, Scottsdale and Phoenix. As the “Official Pizza” of the Arizona Cardinals, Phoenix Suns and the Phoenix Mercury, Spinato’s also serves fresh pizza at concession stands at State Farm Stadium and Mortgage Matchup Center.
